Notes from a small island

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Bus Shelters

I meant to write this last Monday, but, well, I’ve had my hands full.

I wanted to congratulate the PTB for installing bus shelters at the bus terminal. The bus terminal today is in my opinion alot better than the old bus terminal that I recall from my childhood. There were however some serious problems with the new design however, namely an inadequate protection from wind and rain blowing in from the ends and the back wall. I don’t know why this wasn’t factored in during the design and construction stage. There also continues to be some problems with traffic use of the road there, but this seems to have been corrected to a large degree and really seemed to be more of teething problems there than anywhere else.

The have now erected those transparent shelters that they had up for the temporary station when it was on the other side of City Hall. The way it was done honestly does look like a tacky afterthought, but as someone who uses the bus for their primary transportation beyond walking, I certainly do appreciate the shelter that these provide. Obviously it doesn’t help everyone, as it really only covers the benches, but this is still an improvement over the previous arrangement.

While I’m on the topic of bus shelters though, I’ve always wondered if we couldn’t do more with the bus shelters throughout the island. One of the main concerns I have is that of security. I”m not a technological type person, but from what little I do know, I don’t see why it should be so hard to install a solar panel on the roofs to power some security lights for these shelters. I understand the concern of vandalism, but surely its possible to protect these, and to have police or whatever report any outages as they see them, and have them repaired asap. I also don’t see why we can’t install ‘panic’ buttons or emergency phones there either. Or why the solar panels couldn’t be connected to the electrical grid to reduce our overall dependence on fossil fuels. Or way we don’t build water tanks underneath them to catch the rain like our houses, and use this water for communal gardens or public parks.

That’s a brilliant idea, actually. Hopefully the powers that be are listening. Regarding the bus shelters, it’s better than nothing, but still somewhat tacky. I get the impression that the bus terminal was developed to benefit the drivers and conductors but didn’t take in the passengers’ needs quite as much. For example, a vending machine for snacks is okay, and the TV monitors is glitzy, but why not develop an automated ticket kiosk where one can spend cash and get tokens, something very useful during evenings and weekends when attendants aren’t available?

If you look at the layout of the station it seems to me that they intended to do just that, setting up an automated machine similar to the parking ticket machines at City Hall, as there appear to be wiring there for them. They just haven’t installed them, and I don’t really know why not.

I do hope they go ahead with the lights idea for the shelters; I know a number of women who are afraid to use the shelters after daylight, or even walk past them.